SPARTAN-G019
* |rank= |specialty= *Leadership *Infiltration |battles= |class= |status= Active}} SPARTAN-G019, also known by his first name Sam, was a former member of both SPARTAN-III Gamma Company and the Headhunter program. Born Samuel Keller, Sam would be recruited into the SPARTAN program at the age of four by Erin Coney, alongside his best friend Marcus. Sam would become part of Training Team Macheté during their early years of training, only be listed as killed in augmentations to join the Headhunters, taking on the callsign Archer One. As a Headhunter, Sam would see action during both the Fall of Reach and the Second Battle of Earth, before being deployed into Remnant territory for two years. Career Service Vitae Early Life Despite his status as an eidetic, Sam has even less memory of his parents than other Spartans. Possessing only vague recollections of a single mother, Sam has not only forgotten her name, but her face as well, something Spartans usually manage to keep with them. Sam does not even remember the world he was born on. The only feasible explanation ONI psychologists have come up with, as well as that favored by Sam himself, is that the trauma of seeing his mother killed, something Sam does remember, caused him to subconciously reject the memories to keep from going insane. Following whatever hell he was put through, Sam ended up in an orphanage in Manassas on Reach, where he met a younger boy named Marcus. Finding a kindred spirit in him, Sam and Marcus became great friends. Often seeing the situation as "them versus the world", Sam and Marcus often got into bloody fights with the older orphans, which they never started, often won, and always were blamed for. Looking for an outlet, the pair often left the orphanage in the night, and caused havoc across the city, shoplifting candy, evading the police, and leaving burning plastic dolls aboard ships about to leave the local spaceport, knowing that the horrible smell would be stuck on the ship as soon as it left atmosphere. Despite never having proof, the orphanage's staff suspected Sam and Marcus of the crimes whenever the police arrived on the front step, and even posted guards outside the pair's bedroom. They then used the air vents to sneak into a different room, where they could quietly leave. Conscription as a SPARTAN Eventually the pair's antics became so problematic that ONI Section Three took an interest in the recurring reports of a duo of young children constantly evading arrest and injuring the police, so assigned Codename: THORN to investigate the duo. Finding the two boys out on one of their shoplifting sprees, Coney tailed them from the shadows. Coney followed the pair into an old apartment complex, and was surprised when they actually ambushed her, attempting to incapacitate her with makeshift clubs. The boys were, of course, outclassed by the augmented black-ops agent, but Sam actually managed to land a glancing blow across Coney's back, leaving her stunned from surprise and allowing the two to shake her and return to the orphanage. Despite being sure they had seen the last of the "dangerous lady", Sam didn't notice the tracking device she had attached to the collar of his shirt. Tracing the pair back to the orphanage, Coney flagged them as potentials for Gamma Company, assigning Sam and Marcus the numbers "Gamma-Oh-One-Nine" and "Gamma-Two-Two-Eight", respectively. Seeing that the orphans were due to get tetanus shots within the month, Coney had the regular doctors who were to administer the shots replaced with a team of ONI scientists. The scientists took blood samples when they administered the shots, and confirmed the two boys as possessing near perfect genetic matches for the augmentations. Coney forwarded her report back to Section Three, and recieved the green light to collect the duo. Arming herself with a tranquilizer rifle, Coney decided to take the pair on one of their escapes, as the volunteers at the orphanage already expected them to leave and never come back. As she aimed the rifle at Sam's arm, however, Coney thought back to the night when the young children had both detected and attacked her. As she prepared to pull the trigger, a strange curiosity came over Coney. Deciding to test just how exceptional the young boys were, Coney intentionally missed her first shot. The two children immediately started running, and led Coney on a seven-hour game of cat-and-mouse through the city. Near the end of the chase, Marcus was shot with a knockout dart, and Sam disappeared into the city, leaving Marcus to whatever maniac was chasing them. Coney was disappointed by Sam's seeming cowardice, and made the decision to take only Marcus, saying Sam had thrown himself in front of a car. As Coney approached Marcus, Sam shadowed her, having run to a nearby construction site and "borrowed" a sledgehammer. Initially afraid that Marcus had been killed, Sam was overjoyed to see him fighting the affects of the knockout dart, but was angered when the mysterious attacker pulled him into a stranglehold. Enraged, Sam brought the hammer down on the back of the attacker's skull, knocking the person out, and was about to strike again when he realized who was chasing them. The exact same woman who had followed them a few weeks before. Coney awoke and found her own weapon clumsily pointed at her. Demanding answers, Sam asked Coney what she wanted with him and Marcus, threatening to shoot her if she didn't answer. Despite being able to tell the weapon wasn't loaded, Coney decided to humor Sam, and told him why she had been shadowing the pair. Playing off Sam's obvious discontent with his surroundings and both children's desire to get revenge on the Covenant, Erin "officially" asked them if they wanted to become SPARTANS. As she expected, the two boys agreed. Coney promptly sedated the pair with a modified hold-out, and began to wonder just what she had gotten herself into when Sam managed to strike her with the rifle before falling unconscious. Early Training and Augmentations Training as a HEADHUNTER Operation: OLYMPUS Operation: PROBLEM CHILD and the Fall of Reach The Second Battle of Earth Personality Strengths and Weaknesses One of Sam's greatest qualities is his eidetic memory. Capable of listing every known digit of pi, Sam also uses his ability for militant applications. Early on in his training, Sam was one of many who utterly botched the course in medicine and surgery. However, he was able to apply his new knowledge of human anatomy to killing, having learned the locations of every vulnerable organ in the human body via one of Aspen-B145's medical tomes. However, Sam's memory is also a curse both to him and to ONI, who are afraid that he will stumble on to one of their more secretive projects and go rogue. To Sam, though, the curse is in remembering every horror he has ever been witness too. He remembers the exact details of the deaths of every soldier who has fallen under his command, and to an extent the phantom memories of every injury inflicted on him cause him pain in his sleep. So as Sam's skill as both soldier and leader increases, so does the number of horrible memories he has collected to haunt him. Once one of Gamma Company's most infamous pranksters, Sam has outwardly become something of an automaton, though his AI companion REDACTED has attested to an incredibly active mind. Sam rarely interacts with anyone outside his own team, and he moves almost mechanically without a weapon in his hands. Hobbies Beyond maintaining his arms and armor, and developing evermore powerful weapons, Sam passes his free time writing a lengthy series of journals, chronicling his eventful life. Despite the potential threat to security this represents to the Office, Sam is allowed to continue his writing, as he would most definitely spend his waking hours hacking into eyes-only reports. As an even more controversial hobby, Sam enjoys piloting single-man spacecraft at breakneck speeds. Following the events of Operation: REDACTED, Sam would take a particular liking to , eventually designing a more compact version for use by ROYAL Team. He would frequently take Booster Frames into areas where he risked death, such as asteroid belts. As a result of this unorthodox self-training, Sam learned to dodge high-speed projectiles like missles and flying debris almost subconsciously, a skill that saved his life on several missions against Remnant forces and Kig-Yar pirates. Equipment Armor As a member of the Headhunters, Sam wore a more advanced version of the Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor used by his "mainstream" brethren. Equipped with energy shielding, motion trackers, VISR technology, and even a prototype active camoflauge module. Sam wore his steel gray suit of SPI armor for many years following the end of the Human-Covenant War, and became an expert at maintaining and tinkering with the armor, a necessity when being deployed behind enemy lines for an extended period of time. Indeed, Sam often spent his spare time upgrading his armor, fitting in more advanced av-cam systems, and even transplanting completely foreign pieces of equipment into his armor, such as his inclusion of a Sangheili Energy Dagger in his wrist armor. Following the events of the Heaven's Gate investigation, Sam felt that his SPI armor was becoming a liability, so began working towards getting access to Mk V variant plates for himself and his unit. Wearing an helmet taken from the Asymmetrical Action Group's SPARTAN personnel, and fitted with an to facilitate greater strategic awareness, Sam also wears a chest piece, allowing for quick access to spare ammunition and explosives. For supplemental protection, Sam wears ODST shoulder pads, and FJ Para knee guards. Sam has a black visor, but contrary to belief, the visor wasn't tinted', but layered to allow for a triple HUD overleaf that allowed Sam to follow his team's BIOCOM, the default Tactical display, and the integrated overlay for whatever vehicle Sam happens to be piloting. Individual leafs can be temporarily deactivated to allow for better focus, but Sam rarely needs to do so. Unwilling to loose all of his previous work on his SPI armor's systems, Sam would transplant most of the equipment from his old armor to the new, with the notable exception of the shield generator, which had been on the verge of overloading following the countless beatings it had absorbed. Weapons As an infiltration specialist, Sam became an expert at sneaking through compounds full of potential targets without being seen, but he was still often required to engage in bloody shootouts and fistfights. All of his ranged weapons sported sound/flash suppressors, but Sam would begin packing tools such as shotguns and plasma weaponry following the Second Battle of Earth, when several marines under Sam's command were slaughtered by Covenant special forces. Sam would develop a particular affinity for close to mid-ranged weapons such as the , as well as longer ranged weapons like the and the . Despite the expected problems with a distance weapon at close range, Sam would become an expert at the application of such weapons in close range combat, and even into melee fighting. After his energy dagger shorted out during combat on Eridanus II, Sam felt the need for more traditional weapons to be added to his arsenal. As such, Sam began to train extensively with a pair of japanese wakizashi. Finding that the twinned sheaths for the blades obstructed him in hand-to-hand combat, Sam built spring-loaded sheaths for the blades into the undersides of his wrist armor, where they could be pulled out at a thought, and even used as ballistic knives. Vehicles As with all Spartans, Sam would be trained to use most UNSC vehicles as part of his training, but he generally preferred to move and fight on foot. However, Sam did know that mechanized assault and recon have their place, and often used abandoned or captured vehicles taken from the battlefield. Sam was somewhat fascinated with the Covenant's own vehicles, and became one of few humans to be considered experts in their usage. When asked as to why he so enjoyed piloting Covenant craft, Sam would honestly reply that he enjoyed the sensation of flying and freedom. Strangely enough, Sam was horrible at flying human aircraft, though he eventually became an expert spacer. Category:Gamma Company